


Houndstooth

by indistinct_echo



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Temporary Amnesia, werewolf!dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:10:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indistinct_echo/pseuds/indistinct_echo
Summary: Phil finds himself in a forest that feels familiar but that he can't quite remember. There he meets a man who is more than meets the eye.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 32
Kudos: 54





	Houndstooth

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Phil's 31/08/20 [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CEj59CqjzhH/) post.

Phil doesn’t remember how he got here. He knows he’s been here before, maybe once, twice, a few dozen times, but he can’t quite recall that either.

What does it mean to know a place he can’t remember?

Phil wants to believe it’s possible — he doesn’t think his internal sense of recognition could be so thoroughly faked by faulty déjà vu — but he also understands that the features of forestry aren’t that unique, at least to his untrained eye, and it’s more than likely he’s just been in similar looking woods before.

He crouches down towards the forest floor and runs his fingers through the leaves and decomposing bark that carpet the soft, wet ground. He looks around from his new vantage point.

Trees rise tall and sturdy from the ground and their branches spread in a wide canopy above his head. It’s the very end of summer, and the leaves are just beginning to change color. Rich greens and vibrant gold are interweaved with a crisp russet that shines when the sunlight hits in just the right way.

There are some smaller plants around him. They move easily in the faint breeze that’s palpable even so deep within the forest.

Phil clears some of the underbrush in front of him with his hand. He presses his palm firmly to the soil, still damp from yesterday’s rain. When he breathes in, he almost thinks he can smell the cleanliness of the earth.

Then there’s the sound of a branch breaking somewhere to Phil’s left, and his head snaps to face the intrusion. There’s an increase in the rustling, and something instinctive makes the back of Phil’s neck prickle uncomfortably. He stands back up and tries to position himself in a defensive stance.

It’s a good thing, too — not even a minute later, a large, black wolf pads his way through the bushes and stands in the small clearing before Phil. The wolf eyes him calmly, but that doesn’t bring Phil much comfort. Though it doesn’t look particularly threatening, it would be nice if the wolf kept its distance.

Instead, once it shakes off the leaves stuck to its dark fur, it comes even closer. It — _he_ , Phil notices — starts walking in circles around Phil, and Phil tries to hold his breath. But, now that he’s so close, the wolf doesn’t even seem to be paying attention to him. He’s looking out towards the rest of the forest, and Phil is kind of impressed that he can walk in such careful circles without once looking where he’s going.

After two tortuously long circles around Phil, the wolf stops behind him. The wolf grunts and then howls.

That can’t be a good sign.

Phil half wants to turn around and see what’s pulled the wolf’s attention, but he also knows how bad of an idea it would be to startle him. So, Phil starts up a breathing exercise to calm himself and squeezes his eyes shut.

The sounds seem amplified with Phil’s eyes closed, and it almost becomes more challenging to keep steady. But then the wolf’s pained noises stop, and Phil’s heart slows to a more manageable pace. Curiosity claws at him, and he can’t bring himself to deny it any longer. Slowly, after blinking his eyes open, he turns around.

There is no wolf. Instead, there is a man.

A naked man.

A _very attractive_ naked man, but a naked man, nonetheless.

Phil grabs at one sleeve of his jumper and then the other, and he pulls it up and off his body. He extends it towards the man.

“Here,” he says.

“Thanks.” The man takes it with a lopsided smile. He has dimples, Phil notices and then briefly wonders if wolves can have dimples as well.

The man holds Phil’s gaze, and so Phil doesn’t feel the need to look away as he ties the jumper around his waist. Phil does, however, make sure his gaze never travels below where the man’s hands are tying the knot.

He has nice hands. He also has a nice dick, not that Phil’s looking.

Once the knot is tied, the man turns the jumper around until the torso area of the fabric is hanging over his crotch area. That’s smarter than what Phil would’ve done; he’d probably just have put on the jumper as normal and only then realized all of his junk was still hanging out.

“So, is today’s visit intentional?”

Phil blinks at him. “Visit,” he says slowly, as though testing the word. “Have I been here before?”

“ _Unintentional_ it is, then,” says the man with a smile that makes his warm brown eyes sparkle.

Phil is not fully following what’s going on, but the man’s eyes seem kind, and, well, he’s still hot. Especially when he turns around and bends over to grab a small plastic container that was buried shallowly within the decaying vegetation. Phil shifts his gaze to the sky and hopes his blush doesn’t give him away.

The man brushes some dirt from the container and hands it to him.

“Here, Phil. This should help.”

Phil’s so focused on trying to not picture the guy’s ass that it takes him a moment to process.

“You know my name?” So much has happened in the last couple of minutes that Phil isn’t even really shocked, just curious.

The man laughs gently. “Yes, but apparently you can’t remember mine. I’m Dan.” He reaches a hand for Phil to shake.

Phil takes his hand and another flicker of déjà vu sparks within him. “Dan,” he says, trying to match the face to the name. He flips through a mental list of all of the ‘Dan’s he knows in a futile attempt to figure out how Phil knows this particular one. “Do you have a last name?”

“Howell,” Dan says as he lets go of Phil’s hand.

“Like the wolf?” Phil teases, though he actually thinks the name quite suits him.

“Exactly like the wolf. It’s my wolf name.”

Phil doesn’t find that particularly surprising which is, itself, somewhat of a surprise.

“Must’ve been quite a loud pup to get a name like that,” he says.

And maybe that’s too familiar of a thing to say to a man he’s just met and whom he’s only _half_ sure is a werewolf, but then Dan barks out a yelp of laughter, and Phil not only is assuaged that his comment was in-bounds for conversational banter but also feels a little smug because his assumption was right; Dan _is_ loud, and his joy is infectious.

“Didn’t even need the box to figure that one out,” Dan says with a fond roll of his eyes.

“This box?” Phil shakes the container in his hand.

Dan nods. “Open it.”

Phil does.

The box is filled with post-it notes. Some of them are only a few words — one immediately catches his eye that just says ‘ _Werewolf!_ ’ next to a smiley face — while others have entire paragraphs. But all of them are written in Phil’s own handwriting.

“Wow,” Phil says breathlessly as he flips through the notes, “I really have been here before.” A couple of the notes are dated, and the earliest one he’s seen goes all the way back to _March._

“Yeah, usually when we hang out, you write things down so you can catch yourself up on whatever happened last time. We’ve been trying to figure out what makes you come here in the first place, seeing as you don’t remember any of it.”

Phil nods. It makes sense for him to have left a record for himself, but there’s still something surreal about having absolutely no recollection of writing these notes in the first place.

Then he remembers the crumpled post-it he shoved into his jeans earlier today. He reaches a hand into his back pocket to fish it out.

“I noticed this stuck to the side of my mirror this morning,” he says to Dan as he unfolds the note. “I don’t know how long it’s been there.”

His heart thumps with the intensity of being on the verge of something greater than he can comprehend. On the post-it, there’s only one word: ‘Houndstooth.’

“Does this mean something to you?” Phil asks as he passes it to Dan. “I just thought some drunken past-Phil really wanted me to wear my houndstooth jumper.” He motions to said jumper now covering Dan’s crotch.

Dan cocks his head to the side. “Maybe that’s it, then. Is it possible you’ve always been wearing houndstooth when you’ve ended up here?”

“What, like some kind of play on the whole wolf thing?” Phil asks skeptically. Dan shrugs. “I mean, I guess it’s possible. But what’s the point? I’m brought here by the supernatural power of textiles, and you just prance around naked until we go our separate ways?”

Dan’s cheeks go red. “Um, well, usually I’m not the only one who’s naked in the end.”

_Oh._

“Kind of miffed that I don’t remember any of that, to be honest.”

“So predictable, Lester,” Dan teases. “And you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”

“Well, since _you_ seem to remember everything, Mr. Howell, you’re just going to have to find a way to jog my memory. I can think of a few possibilities I’d like to try…”

Dan yips. “You say that like it’s a joke, but we’ve definitely tested everything we could think of,” he says.

Phil pushes his lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. “Well that’s just not fair.”

“You know what’s not fair?” Dan asks with wide, puppy-dog eyes. “I asked you to bring me Starbucks last time, but you didn’t write it down.” The last part sounds almost like a whimper.

Phil blinks. “Werewolves drink coffee?”

“We’re still half-human, you doof. And unless I’ve stashed some clothes nearby in advance, I can’t just walk into a coffee shop any time I want.”

Phil looks around their small clearing. “You don’t leave clothes here?” He still isn’t quite sure where he is, has no idea whether he’s close to home or is even near any form of civilization at all, but if this is their meeting place…

“Like I said, I don’t usually need clothes around you. And, on the off chance that I do, you always have been willing to give me some. My closest set of clothing is in Brighton, I think.”

Phil reflects back to when he first saw Dan and, now that he more clearly understands their _relationship,_ partially regrets giving him a cover-up. “Maybe I should stop being so magnanimous.”

Dan rolls his eyes and holds up a hand. “I know the pheromones can be a lot, but please keep it in your pants. You prefer me not fully transformed, anyways.”

Phil’s mouth goes dry. “That’s a possibility?”

Dan’s voice drops lower. “You figure out how to get yourself back here, and I’ll show you just how much _I_ remember about _exactly_ how you like it.”

Then he shrugs, and his voice returns to normal. “Assuming you bring me Starbucks, that is.”

“You tease,” Phil says with a wide smile. “How am I supposed to get back here? I can’t even remember how I got here today.”

“Take another post-it. Maybe leave yourself more than one word, this time.”

Phil chuckles, but Dan wrings his fingers together.

“A date and time would be nice.” Dan says this quieter than everything else, and he seems shyer than would be expected from a guy comfortable walking around in the nude. But there’s a little flutter of hope in Phil’s chest, and Phil thinks he understands.

“Are you asking me on a date, Dan?”

Dan blushes. “Well, technically I’m asking you to ask _me_ on a date.”

“And for Starbucks,” Phil adds.

Dan nods. “And for Starbucks.”

Phil’s feeling of déjà vu is gone, and there’s something nice about being sure he’s experiencing something for the very first time.

“Alright,” he says fondly, “one order for Starbucks and a date, coming right up!”

**Author's Note:**

> Like/Reblog [here](https://indistinct-echo.tumblr.com/post/628094682648494080/houndstooth) :)


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